Lineup shuffling will take place for the Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Louis Blues when the teams meet at Amalie Arena on Thursday.

The Lightning will be without two-time Vezina Trophy finalist in goaltender Ben Bishop, who is out an estimated 3-to-4 weeks with an undisclosed lower-body injury suffered during the first period of Tuesday's victory against Detroit.

Bishop was injured when he flexed out his right leg to make a stop on Detroit defenseman Nick Jensen and got up awkwardly while shaking his head. During the next stoppage in play, Bishop went over the bench and headed for the locker room.

That means the Lightning will turn to former first-round draft pick Andrei Vasilevskiy to handle the workload while Bishop is out. Vasilevskiy, in his third season, is 7-4-1 with a 2.41 goals-against-average and .923 save percentage. He posted shutouts in back-to-back starts earlier this season, but made starts in consecutive games only once this season.

The 22-year-old is ready for the extra workload.

"Sure, that's why I'm here," Vasilevskiy said. "That's what I'm working for every day, that's going to be a good opportunity for me to play more games."

Vasilevskiy has experience stepping in for Bishop, leading the Lightning to within a game of the Stanley Cup Finals last season after Bishop was injured in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Tampa Bay eventually lost in seven games to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

"The kid is ready to play, he's a pro," forward Brian Boyle said. "We have goaltending depth. Now we have to use it."

The Lightning called up Kristers Gudlevskis from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Wednesday to back up Vasilevskiy.

Tampa Bay is also awaiting the return of top scorer Nikita Kucherov, who missed the last four games with an undisclosed lower-body injury. Kucherov has not skated with the team in more than a week, though he is still listed as day-to-day, along with Ondrej Palat, who has missed three games. Palat participated in Tuesday's morning skate, though he was wearing a no-contact jersey.

The Blues, meanwhile, will be without center Paul Stastny, who suffered an undisclosed upper-body injury during the third period of Tuesday's overtime victory at Dallas.

"He took a hit in the beginning of the third period so he's day-to-day," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock told the St. Louis Post Dispatch. "He's rehabbing and we'll see. But with a game (Thursday), it's doubtful that he'll be able to play."

Stastny's absence leaves the Blues looking for somebody to take on the 20 minutes per night he plays, along with the role he plays as the team's top faceoff center, taking 36 percent of the team's draws.

"Obviously it's a top-six center so if it looks like he's not able to play, we'll have to make an evaluation which way we want to go," Hitchcock said of finding a replacement.

St. Louis expects to get back top defenseman Alex Pietrangelo after he missed Tuesday's game because of illness.

Quote:

Blues • The Blues go into their final game before the Christmas break looking for back-to-back road wins for the first time this season. … The Blues beat Tampa Bay at Scottrade on Dec. 1, taking a 4-1 lead and holding on for a 5-4 win behind a Vladimir Tarasenko hat trick. The Blues won 2-1 at Tampa last season. … The Blues don’t play Florida until April, making this the first time since 2005-06 the team has made two trips to Florida in one season.

Lightning • Tampa Bay has won just three of its past 12 games, though it’s coming off a 4-1 win over Detroit on Tuesday in which goalie Ben Bishop was hurt. (He’ll be out 3 to 4 weeks.) Tampa Bay is 1-6-1 against Western Conference teams this season, the worst mark in the league. … Nikita Kucherov leads the team in points with 30 (13 goals, 17 assists) but he didn’t play Tuesday against Detroit because of an injury. He’s followed by D Victor Hedman with 26 points (6-20).

This day in history:1974 Phil Esposito becomes the sixth player in NHL history to score 500 goals1990 Paul Coffey becomes the second NHL defenceman to record 1000 points, doing so in a record-breaking 770 games1996 Brett Hull joins his father in the NHL's 500-goal club2002 Ron Francis joins Wayne Gretzky as the only players in NHL history with 1,200 career assists

3 keys:1) Stay out of the penalty box. Drouin is on fire managing their PP unit.2) No 2nd period Blues playing most of the period in Blues end. Lightning scored three 2nd period goals in their last game.3) Keep pressure on Lightning to draw penalties. Lightning are 4th most penalized team in the league, but it they aren't pressured, they won't commit the penalties.

So with Stastny out and Wade Megan the call-up, I guess the question is will Hitch still try to find ways to avoid putting Rattie in the lineup?

If I'm Rattie, there's no chance I would ever sign another contract with the Blues. Maybe they can cut a deal with the Golden Knights that they'll take whoever in the expansion draft and then promptly trade him back for Rattie because that's his best chance to ever get any kind of playing time unless he's traded before then. Hard to trade a guy who's rotting in the press box though.

1st period - the Blues played in solid 5 man units, the game flowed more than Hitchcock tends to like with even play at both ends, no significant zone pressure from either team and the Blues come out ahead 2-0. Not once did I see a Blues line change where forward went straight to the offensive blue line looking for a stretch pass. Also in the first period, Blues forwards were more aggressively defending the points when the Lightning did enter the zone. That stopped in the 2nd with idiots looking for non-existent stretch passes again.

2nd period proves Hitchcock can't leave success alone. After the 4th line with Megan at C actually plays well generates a goal - off the rush, no less - Hitch moves Megan to the 3rd line and the 4th line disappears again along with the 3rd line which hadn't done squat. On top of that, we suddenly see on almost every line change (4th line excluded) one Blues forward coming off the bench and bee-lining to a spot on the offensive blue line looking for a non-existent stretch pass opportunity. This has to be coached, because it happens too consistently and didn't happen at all, at least that I noticed, in the 1st period.

2nd goal against, however, there is a severe lack of communication to Edmundson or judgment by Edmundson, don't know which. He's following an attacker behind the net, that attacker sends the puck so high in the zone, #6 has no chance in hell of getting to the puck, so does he stay with his man?? No, he chases the puck leaving him defending nothing and hanging Pietrangelo and Allen out to dry with 2 Bolts in front of the net. Stay with the lower man #6. And Lehtera was pressuring where the puck went to force a quick decision, so #6 was doubly wrong to chase the puck.

3rd period and 3rd goal against - more of the same 2nd period nonsense. 3rd goal was absolutely disgusting defense by the Blues. Tyler Johnson enters the zone and gets the puck deep. Behind him, the Lightning execute a line change. 3 Blues attempt to defend Johnson, but do they bother trying to defend both sides of him?? No. they all go to the same side, Johnson simply turns and skates away getting the puck to a now wide open point due to the entire team basically ignoring the Lightning line change, 3/5th of the skaters failing to stop Johnson, and covering no one. Disgusting defensive zone play.

Blues need new coaches given that these coaches made adjustments to have the team do what has not been working away from what was working in the 1st period. So what if the game has too much back and forth flow?? The Blues look like a better team playing a flow game and not the stodgy, slow, plodding game this staff prefers. This flow thing - it was working vs Dallas and it was working vs the Lightning. Why the hell the Blues coaches don't see this and that it favors the makeup of the team? I have no idea. 5 man tight units work for this roster. The spread out always looking for the home run play clearly does not.

Forgot about the empty netter by Drouin - that was a demonstration of why Hunt is not a regular NHL defenseman. Hunt has great instincts, but if your a small defenseman, you have to be a fast, small NHL defenseman. He's got no speed at all. Yes, it's Drouin and he has excellent speed, but Hunt looked so slow in comparison... slower than Bouwmeester.

Forgot about the empty netter by Drouin - that was a demonstration of why Hunt is not a regular NHL defenseman. Hunt has great instincts, but if your a small defenseman, you have to be a fast, small NHL defenseman. He's got no speed at all. Yes, it's Drouin and he has excellent speed, but Hunt looked so slow in comparison... slower than Bouwmeester.

He's not the fastest. However, the offensive skill he possesses supersedes Carl Gunnarsson's safe, defensive play. Big picture, Hunt may not stick but I believe he deserves to on this current roster.

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